


Another Shameful Secret

by unknowntrombone



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mention of Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-23 23:58:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2560538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowntrombone/pseuds/unknowntrombone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumple has issues with sex and intimacy after Belle used the dagger on him but is afraid to tell her. Spoilers for 4x06.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Rumple could barely believe it but they were alive. _Belle_ was alive. Not just alive, but she remembered who he was, she was not Lacey, and there was no one that could come between them. He held her to his chest on the pawnshop floor and thanked the almighty gods that their adventure had not taken her away from him once again.

It was she who moved first. She shifted her weight so that their heads were close together. Then she kissed the side of his head just below the ear, then his temple, his cheek, and then, finally his lips. They continued to kiss, passionately, fully. He could think of nothing but her and there was no doubt in his mind that she felt the same. She leaned forward until he was lying on his back. He tugged at her coat, undoing the large buttons and then tossing it aside. She pulled his suit jacket over his head and then worked on the buttons of his shirt, quickly pulling it open. Her lips brushed against his neck as she undid his tie. He felt her hands, still cold from the Snow Queen’s cave, against his chest. She grabbed one of his nipples in her mouth and sucked it gently. Her right hand moved down his belly and further until he could feel it rubbing him against the fabric of his pants. She went for his zipper with her other hand, opened it and then tugged his pants down. Then he noticed that his shirt was open and his pants were down past his knees. He was almost naked and she only had her coat off. 

By all accounts, he should have been undoing the buttons of her blouse, bringing it above her head, wrapping his hands across her back and then undoing her bra. He wasn’t worried about visitors. They had closed the shop when they left for the Snow Queen’s cave and, if anyone was to walk in on them half-naked and sprawled against the shop floor then by the gods it would be their own damned fault! Yet his hands lay by his sides still and unmoving. Belle did not seem to mind. She had pulled his boxers down and was now enthusiastically bringing him to hardness with both of her hands.

Maybe she liked him this way. Her removing his clothes one after the other. Him lying on the floor stiff and motionless.

Like a doll…

His head was beginning to swim. It does not take much for unwanted thoughts to invade his mind and, once he had immediately jumped to the worst possible conclusion, it was also extremely difficult for him to convince himself otherwise. He thought of all the times he had given himself to Belle completely. The times she had brought him past the brink until he let go of everything, feeling weightless, euphoric, and fulfilled. Now he wondered if she enjoyed the way he melted into her arms afterward, if she got off in some perverse fashion on seeing him so helpless and spent. _Zelena_ did _._

 This was not the first time he had thought such awful things about his lovely, wonderful wife. Sometimes she would give him a look so ravenous with desire that he couldn’t help but be another pair of blue eyes and a mocking predatory smile, staring him down behind the wire of a cage. Yet he was able to push those nagging thoughts away with one strong conviction: _Belle would never want to control me._

 _Perhaps,_ he now thought to himself. _That was only because she never had the need and the opportunity. Not until today._  

With that thought, a wave of nausea hit him. Every part of him was telling him that this was wrong. That he did not want to do this. Not with her. Not after what she had done. Yet he thought of how difficult it would be for him to tell her to stop. She would be confused because he just told her he forgave her. Was that wrong? Had he spoke too soon? He did not know.

 She had now stopped using her hands and was now pleasuring him with her tongue and mouth. He watched her bob up and down between his thighs. Clearly, she was enjoying herself. After all that she had been through, after confronting the mirror and telling him a secret that had been killing her on the inside, did she not deserve to enjoy herself? And after he had deceived her, lied to her several times, and killed a man just days prior what did he deserve? Gods, he had been given the perfect opportunity to fess up just moments before and he couldn’t do it, because he was too much of a weak, simpering, pathetic, cow-

Belle took him completely, burying him to the hilt. He gasped and shuddered. In that moment of bliss, all of his thoughts evaded him. The doubt was gone, the fear was gone. It only took a few more licks and strokes before he came. Belle loved him so much, had given him so much, and he felt all of it every time.

She raised her head, wiped what remained of his seed off of her chin, and crawled next to him. She enjoyed being against his chest so she could hear his heart go crazy. He somehow managed to raise his arms off of the floor and hold her against him. This was supposed to feel amazing, but once he had been brought down from his previous high, he felt a strange sense of dread. Like he had been used and violated so that she could have something else to hang over his head. All magic comes with a price and love is a weapon. Two things he had said to countless others as he mocked their misfortune. What a fool he had been to think that things could have been different with her. He wanted to curl up into a ball, disappear from the world, and cry. But men don’t cry after sex. That was for young girls and newlyweds. Men, real men anyway, give their wives as much pleasure as they got and more. Once again, the time to be honest with her had passed, he would be selfish to tell her now. And, Gods, if she really wanted something from him, she once again had the need and the opportunity…

No, he would not let it come to that. He gently rolled Belle over and began to undo her blouse. She did not seem to notice that his hands were shaking.

He owed her an orgasm.

That day he gave her many.


	2. Chapter 2

In the weeks following their honeymoon, Rumple would often arrive home with flowers in hand ready to cook his wife something delicious and shower her with love. He would convince himself that these actions were entirely unrelated from the lies he had told her and the ways he was going behind her back. He sometimes even believed that he could make up for all of it. 

Now, he would put off going home until after the sun had set, dreading it all the while. When he did come home, he would be overwhelmed with guilt and anxiousness that he did not—could not—show. The fear, the dread, the guilt, all of it meant that he was never in the mood, but that didn’t matter. Once Belle undressed him and put her hands in all the right places, nothing mattered.

Afterward though, he would lie awake wondering and worrying. He would think about all the times Belle had pushed him down, grabbed his hair, nibbled at his throat and collarbone, left marks on his back with her nails, smothered his moans with a hand to his mouth, yanked his tie just enough that he became a little light-headed, and pulled him this way and that way until he was not sure what she was doing with his arms and legs. Why were these the times that he found himself wanting her the most? Had he always enjoyed being manhandled? He could not remember. But if he did, that would explain why Zelena was able to keep him at her mercy for so damned long.  Perhaps he had… _liked it._ It was not a kind thought, and it certainly was not a comforting one, but this was the thought that kept him company every night since the incident with the Snow Queen’s mirror.

Eventually, he would go to sleep, and when he woke up the next day, he would be desperate to leave the house. To go back to his shop and find someone or something that could bring him back to feeling like he was in control once again. So far, everything proceeded as Rumple had predicted. His gift from the seer allowed him to see just enough of the future to stay just a little bit ahead of everyone else. It was not fair but Rumple knew that the world did not operate on fairness, just on power along with the whims and desires of those that had it.       

With his premonitions, his wits, and his penchant for manipulation, he was able to keep his two most dangerous enemies at the moment, Hook and the Snow Queen, at arm’s length. Meanwhile, his current allies, the Charming family, Regina and the others were either too distracted to notice his machinations or were eating right out of his hand.

Barring any last minute accidents or unexplainable good luck at a bad time for the wrong person, he might actually be able to win this one.  If he could get the Hat to full power, he’d finally be rid of the dagger for good.

How he enjoyed being so fully in control.  

“You know Crocodile,” Hook said to him on one of their many nefarious excursions. “I almost wish that Belle still had the real dagger.”

Rumple did not respond. He had come to expect regular taunts from his unwilling lackey, and found that the best way to deal with him was to not give him the audience he wanted.

“You want to know why? Because then after I kill her, I could summon you and make you do everything I wanted. I could make you do my dishes, fold my leather coats, fuck your dead wife’s corpse--”

“Do you have a death wish?” Rumple interrupted him. He said it perhaps a little too loudly and it echoed through the forest.

Hook raised his eyebrows and smirked. “No.”

“Then shut up, and do what you’re told,” Rumple growled.  

“Did you tell that to her last night?” Hook asked in a sing-song voice. “Did she tell that to _you_ last night?”

Rumple tensed considerably, but continued walking. He did not want his adversary to know just how close his taunting had been to what was already on his mind.

 

Rumple was in a foul mood for the rest of the day, and it continued once he got home. He opened the door to find that his wife had been eagerly waiting for him. Without so much as a greeting, she pounced on him, kissing him and wrapping her arms around his neck. Without thinking, he stepped back from her.

“Rumple, what is it?” Belle asked.

He panicked immediately, caught between wanting to tell her and fearing what would happen if he did.

“Rumple, are you okay?” She asked again.

“I know what you want but I am…” he choked on the words. “- _not in the mood_ right now,” he continued in a tiny voice, well aware of how sad and pathetic he sounded. “Sorry.”  

“That’s perfectly okay Rumple,” Belle replied.

“It is?” He asked. It was as if a burden, one of many was lifted from him. He felt himself smile for the first time in weeks.

“Why would it not be?” Belle studied his face. “Why do you look so surprised?”

The smile disappeared.

“Did you think,” Belle continued. “Did you think it wasn’t?”

 Rumple nodded slowly.

“Oh Rumple…why? Was it something that I did?”

He shook his head.

“Then what happened sweetheart?” She asked, squeezing his hand.

 His head was swimming. He thought of all the things he could say, what he should say, but he was so deeply ashamed of all of it. There was no way he could tell her. It all seemed so ridiculous and irrational now that she’d probably think he was going mad.

Before Rumple knew it, Belle was leading him to the couch in the living room. She turned on one of the lamps, which filled the room with warm light and sat down. She smiled up at him, he smiled down at her. That was when he realized that he could tell her anything, and that he did not have to be afraid. He sat down next to her and laid his head on her chest. In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to be close to her, _actually_ close to her.

“Belle,” he looked up at her, unsure of how to begin. “When I told you that I forgave you for using the dagger on me, I was telling the truth, but-“

“Rumple if it has to do with that then I’m so, so sorry.”

“I know and it’s okay,” he replied. “This is not your fault. You did what you thought was right.”

“If you really do think that, then what happened?”

“It’s…” he smiled at the ridiculousness of it all. “…difficult to explain.”

“Try me,” she said.

“After what happened, I couldn’t open up to you. I just couldn’t. Not without thinking of _her.”_

“Who? Zelena?”

He tensed at the mention of her name. “Yes.” He paused, looked up at her, and saw that she looked upset. “I _know_ that you are nothing like her. I know that you would never try to hurt me like how she did. But I would still think of her every time I did anything with you. Anything intimate.”

“Why?”

He swallowed. “Being intimate with someone means being vulnerable in more ways than one. I couldn’t help but think every time that if I let myself be vulnerable with you so many times after you used the dagger on me, then what right did I have to have-“ he nearly said the word ‘killed’ but stopped just in time. “- _hated_ Zelena for doing the same?”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No. I guess if you _were_ like her it would make sense but-“

“No,” Belle interrupted. “It doesn’t make sense because we were still having sex. If we were having sex but you didn’t want to have sex then that would mean-“ she stopped and looked horrified.

“You wouldn’t have known Belle. There was no way that you could have. I just went along with it. I never told you because I was afraid.”

“Afraid that what- that I would *make* you? Rumple, I would never do that.”

“I know, but fear is not a rational thing, and you truly are the first person in my life that I have ever been vulnerable with that never wanted something in return.”

Belle kissed his forehead. “I have everything I want already. Everything and more. Just because I am married to you.”

His eyes filled with tears. Gods, this woman was too good for him.“I love you,” he whispered. "I love you so much Belle."   

“I love you too Rumple.”

He knew now that Belle was nothing like Zelena. He now had something that he could use to quiet those nagging, dark thoughts that would flash through his mind at unwanted times. In fact, he had reacted with such calm and understanding to his honesty that perhaps he could…

“Belle,” he began. “There’s something else you must know.”

“What?”

He could feel his heart racing and his stomach tighten. This was a perfect moment to tell her, but in telling her, he would likely never get to experience anything like this again. She would never forgive him. Never want to be anywhere near him.

“Nothing," he finally said. "It’s nothing. Sorry I even mentioned it.”

His heart sank. He was being a self-serving, lying, coward once again.

****

That night, Belle and Rumple talked for hours in bed together, their bodies close to one another and their hands intertwined. She realized just how much she missed those conversations, how little he had talked to her over the past couple of weeks. He _did_ seem very distant. She was glad that he had found it within him to open himself up to her again.

Yet she couldn't help but think of all the times he had come to bed with her, how willing and eager he had looked. If that was all just a facade he was putting on because he was afraid of her knowing the truth, then what else was he lying about? What secrets was he keeping?

Belle now lay on her side, her husband’s arms wrapped around her. He was in a deep contented sleep, probably the first he had in quite a while. She was awake, concentrating on the day that he had gone to the Snow Queen’s lair. Tying to remember what had happened. She could have sworn that, right before he whisked her to his shop, she had told him, dagger in hand, to let her go…


End file.
